Page 64 of Rescuing Tobias

5:02 P.M.

This was a nightmare.

Tobias prayed like he’d never prayed before that any second now he was going to open his eyes and wake up.

Find out that this really was just a dream.

That Isabella was safe, that she hadn't been snatched away from right by his side, that he hadn't failed her so spectacularly that he didn't deserve to live.

The only thing keeping him going was knowing that she needed him now.

He’d failed her once, he couldn’t do it a second time.

To fail her a second time would be to forfeit Isabella’s life, and that he couldn’t do.

So he had to find a way to contain the rage simmering inside him.

It was hard to contain, it pulsed about like a living being, one that was quickly possessing him. Tobias was angry with everything and everyone, but most of all himself. Knowinghe was no longer physically capable of protecting Isabella the way she deserved to be, he should have made sure she was somewhere else.

Selfish.

That’s what he’d been.

His desire to keep Isabella close, to get to know her better, to support her, to be by her side every step of the way through her pregnancy, had overridden his knowledge that he no longer had what it took to protect what was his. Maybe he’d even gotten cocky because yesterday he’d managed to scale that brick fence and drag Isabella up with him. He had allowed himself to believe in the possibility that his back could improve.

Stupid.

Selfish, stupid, failure, pathetic.

But it wasn't he who was going to pay the price for that, it was Isabella and their unborn child.

“We’ll find her. Whatever it takes.”

Raven’s soothing voice had the opposite effect. Instead of infusing him with hope and determination, it was like an accelerant poured over the fires of his fury.

“She doesn’t have long,” he snarled, shoving himself off the couch where he’d been reclining ever since he’d refused the paramedics’ advice that he go to the hospital and give the cops his statement. There was no way he wasn't going to Prey to start working on tracking where his girl had been taken.

Pain that felt like electricity sparking up and down his spine, burned like fire that never went out. It just kept burning. Never-ending. Agony that you had to learn to live with because it wasn't going anywhere.

“Doesn’t mean we can't find her,” Raven said calmly.

“This isn’t like when Cleo was abducted. They're not going to keep her for a decade. As soon as they find out she’s pregnant, she goes from nurse to patient. They’ll keep her alive until shegives birth, then they’ll take Isabella and our baby apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left. There is no decade to find them,” he roared, aware everyone was looking at him with pity—Raven included—but that only added more fuel.

“You're forgetting something,” Raven informed him.

“What?”

“That I didn't know at the time that Cleo would be alive for a decade. Almost half of abducted children are killed within the first hour of the abduction. Nearly eighty percent are gone within the first three hours. I had no way of knowing that Cleo would be in that remaining twenty percent. But I didn't give up on my little girl. I fought for her. Every single day of every single year for almost a decade. Is that how you're going to fight for your child? For its mother? Or are you just going to sit there and continue to throw yourself a pity party?”

The harsh words coming from Raven, who was definitely the calmest of the six Oswald siblings, momentarily stunned him into silence.

“Because if that’s all you're going to do then I'm having you sent to the hospital to be kept under observation until which time I believe you are no longer a threat to yourself,” Raven continued.

Shock had him gaping at her, his back straightening despite the throbbing pain that ran up and down it. “You can't do that.”

Raven’s blue eyes met his squarely. “Watch me. Maybe I'm not Eagle, I don’t walk around believing I know what's best for everyone in every single situation, but I do know that right now you're being a hindrance. All of us have our attention divided between worrying about you and trying to track the vehicle that took Isabella. I know that’s not what you want. So, I am more than prepared to be the bad guy if it helps us all work with maximum productivity.”

“Go Raven,” Chelsea cheered quietly from her desk, where she was watching the exchange.

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